


Escape Velocity

by Cuda (Scylla)



Category: Supernatural, Torchwood
Genre: Crossover Pairings, Crossovers & Fandom Fusions, Far Future, Future Torchwood, Grief/Mourning, Harkstiel, Leaving Home, M/M, SuperWood, Superwho, Working Out My Feelings Through Fic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-04-28
Updated: 2020-04-28
Packaged: 2021-03-02 05:47:31
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 620
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23899975
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Scylla/pseuds/Cuda
Summary: Jack found a ship. He and Castiel prepare to retire, temporarily. Earth will have to carry its own burdens a while without them.
Relationships: Castiel (Supernatural)/Jack Harkness
Comments: 5
Kudos: 6





	Escape Velocity

Jack found the ship on a Thursday evening, which Castiel found both highly ironic and rather appropriate. They wouldn't reach escape velocity until two months later, when the last of the necessary parts arrived and the last of Sateda's frozen bread had been eaten. Nevertheless, the accelerator had to be pressed at some point, and he liked the symbolism of this trajectory beginning on the arbitrary Gregorian calendar day upon which so many other trajectories began.

Either it was a good omen, or an ill one. With so much slow living piled up behind him, Castiel felt philosophical. Omens were what you made of them.

Sateda had made so much bread. Squashing the last crumbs under his fingertips, Jack said he couldn't decide if he wished there were more, or if he would never see another slice of bread as long as he lived. Castiel, holding witness to the funereal feast with his mug of tea, found he could sympathize. They couldn't store perishable food on the craft; refrigeration shucked power off the generators like husks from corn. But he found himself wanting to open the lid of the deep freeze, gazing over an interminable foil-wrapped landscape of Sateda's cooking. Bread and roasts and curries and rice and puddings. She cooked when she was anxious. She had nobody to cook for anymore, Sateda said, but her mother taught her to cook for the family. She always made too much. She fed them.

Jack unplugged the freezer. Castiel unplugged the microwave. He wondered if these things would work when they needed them. He knew it would be when, not if. The promise of inevitability exhaled smoke into his lungs and his eyes.

For silent days they unplugged devices and wrapped cords; sealed boxes and drawers and doors. Castiel watered the plants with acid; murmuring to them that their children would find new life in time, that this was only a pause. He found Jack watching him, leaning in the door of the greenhouse with his arms crossed. They smiled.

"Life support's working," Jack said, freeing one hand to knock a knuckle on the door frame, "ready to go?"

Castiel rolled his shoulders back. He lengthened his spine, listening to the crunchy pop of joints. He thought about the question.

Jack waited. He'd always waited. It was one of the few things in their relationship that hadn't come about from their agonized tussling. Jack asked vague and sometimes impossible questions, but he was patient for their answers.

The ship was ready now, life support having been the last piece of the puzzle. The freezer was empty. The necessary had been packed; the unnecessary stowed away. The subterranean base had a waiting silence to it now, like a sleeping animal. The lights of the scanners went down the night before; the diagnostics at Peter's old desk the last to die.

Earth would have to look after itself a while, and muddle on as best it could.

"Yes," Castiel said, "I'm ready."

He put down his watering can, and followed Jack to the hangar bay. One last trip through the common offices; a goodbye tour.

Jack touched the desks as he passed, fingertips tapping soft on the counter tops. Sateda, Peter, Georgia, Kireen. Some of the desks had been empty a year or more. They'd meant to look for someone. But the owners lingered, the cold weight of their memories filling the space.

If he was completely honest - and Castiel was that very rarely - he'd been ready to go since Georgia. While he'd eschewed most sentimental things, her throwing knives were in his duffel, wrapped in Peter's scarf. Even those things would vanish over time. But for now, they were light enough to carry.


End file.
